Leemor Joshua-Tor is the W.M. Keck Professor of Structural Biology at

Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory (CSHL) is a private, non-profit institution with research programs focusing on cancer, neuroscience, plant biology, genomics, and quantitative biology. It is one of 68 institutions supported by the Cancer Centers ...

and a

Howard Hughes Medical Institute The Howard Hughes Medical Institute (HHMI) is an American non-profit medical research organization based in Chevy Chase, Maryland. It was founded in 1953 by Howard Hughes, an American business magnate, investor, record-setting pilot, engineer, fil ...

Investigator. Her research focuses on the role of the

argonaute The Argonaute protein family, first discovered for its evolutionarily conserved stem cell function, plays a central role in RNA silencing processes as essential components of the RNA-induced silencing complex (RISC). RISC is responsible for the g ...

complex in

RNA interference RNA interference (RNAi) is a biological process in which RNA molecules are involved in sequence-specific suppression of gene expression by double-stranded RNA, through translational or transcriptional repression. Historically, RNAi was known by o ...

Early life and education

Leemor Joshua-Tor was born in

Rehovot, Israel Rehovot ( he, רְחוֹבוֹת ''Rəḥōvōt'', ar, رحوڤوت ''Reḥūfūt'') is a city in the Central District of Israel, about south of Tel Aviv. In it had a population of . Etymology Israel Belkind, founder of the Bilu movement, ...

. She received a B.S. from

Tel-Aviv University Tel Aviv University (TAU) ( he, אוּנִיבֶרְסִיטַת תֵּל אָבִיב, ''Universitat Tel Aviv'') is a public research university in Tel Aviv, Israel. With over 30,000 students, it is the largest university in the country. Locate ...

in chemistry, then served for three years in the

Israeli Defense Forces Israeli may refer to: * Something of, from, or related to the State of Israel * Israelis, citizens or permanent residents of the State of Israel * Modern Hebrew, a language * ''Israeli'' (newspaper), published from 2006 to 2008 * Guni Israeli ...

. She earned a PhD in chemistry in the lab of

Joel Sussman Joel L. Sussman (born September 24, 1943) is an Israeli crystallographer best known for his studies on acetylcholinesterase, a key protein involved in transmission of nerve signals. He is the Morton and Gladys Pickman Professor of Structural Bio ...

from the

Weizmann Institute of Science The Weizmann Institute of Science ( he, מכון ויצמן למדע ''Machon Vaitzman LeMada'') is a public research university in Rehovot, Israel, established in 1934, 14 years before the State of Israel. It differs from other Israeli unive ...

in 1991, then did postdoctoral research at

Caltech The California Institute of Technology (branded as Caltech or CIT)The university itself only spells its short form as "Caltech"; the institution considers other spellings such a"Cal Tech" and "CalTech" incorrect. The institute is also occasional ...

Career

Joshua-Tor joined the faculty at

in 1995 and was promoted to full professor in 2005. She was Dean of the Watson School of Biological Sciences from 2007 to 2012. She is a faculty advisor of CSHL's Women in Science and Engineering group. She has been an HHMI investigator since 2008. In 2005, her lab published the structure of

, helping to demonstrate its role in

, and she is known for her research on argonaute's ''slicer''. She has collaborated extensively with Greg Hannon. Joshua-Tor's research has shed light on how the proteins responsible for

function.

Awards

* 1996 Beckman Young Investigator Award *

Investigator * 2017 Elected to the

National Academy of Sciences The National Academy of Sciences (NAS) is a United States nonprofit, non-governmental organization. NAS is part of the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine, along with the National Academy of Engineering (NAE) and the Nati ...

* 2017 Elected to the

American Academy of Arts and Sciences The American Academy of Arts and Sciences (abbreviation: AAA&S) is one of the oldest learned societies in the United States. It was founded in 1780 during the American Revolution by John Adams, John Hancock, James Bowdoin, Andrew Oliver, and ...

* 2018 ASBMB

Mildred Cohn Award in Biological Chemistry The American Society for Biochemistry and Molecular Biology (ASBMB) is a learned society that was founded on December 26, 1906, at a meeting organized by John Jacob Abel (Johns Hopkins University). The roots of the society were in the American Phy ...

* 2019 Harvey Lecture

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Joshua-Tor, Leemor Year of birth missing (living people) Living people Israeli biochemists Fellows of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences Women biochemists People from Rehovot Tel Aviv University alumni Weizmann Institute of Science alumni 20th-century biologists 20th-century American women scientists 21st-century biologists 21st-century American women scientists Members of the United States National Academy of Sciences